


Never Stop at the Horizon

by Eida



Category: Sagan - Nightwish (Song)
Genre: Gen, Science Fiction, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 17:43:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6866632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eida/pseuds/Eida
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three vignettes taking place as the world awaits the launch of the starship <i>Sagan</i>.</p><p>Some look up, and dream. Some prepare to leave. Some prepare to remain behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Stop at the Horizon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ExtraPenguin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExtraPenguin/gifts).



Marta took a sip of her tea and looked out the cafe window. A sketchbook sat open before her, a few rough sketches visible on the current page.

It had been raining a bit earlier, but it wasn't, now. The sunlight breaking through the clouds had that special quality it always seemed to have after a storm—a sort of gentle glow that made everything seem new. A woman was walking with a young boy—no more than three or four, Marta thought—carefully stepping around puddles. The child tried to pull away from the woman, to look into one of them.

The woman paused, then moved to allow the boy—her son, perhaps?—to get a better look at whatever he found so interesting. His own reflection? The way the water rippled in the breeze?

Quickly, she took her pencil and tried to capture the moment of discovery—whatever that discovery was. The boy reached out, dipped his fingers in the puddle, and then splashed both his hands down, much to the woman's apparent dismay.

Marta laughed, quietly. Her smile faded slightly as she looked down at her work. The proportions were off, and she knew she was nowhere near capturing the look of joy on a child's face as they investigated something of interest.

“You heard about the ship they're sending up, right?” said an older woman at a table nearby.

The man with her snorted. “Of course I have! It's practically all anyone can talk about. I'll be glad when it all dies down.”

“What,” said the woman, lightly, “you don't find it exciting?”

“Eh.” The man took a swallow of his coffee. “Thirty years until they get there. Even with those quantum comm-thingies everyone was raving about a couple years back mean they don't have to worry about message lag, I'll still be long-gone by the time they set foot on Eos.”

“Oh, Gabe, come on. You're barely past eighty. You've got at least another four decades left in you, same as I do,” the woman replied.

“Heh. Still. Thirty years,” said the old man—Gabe. “It's a long time to wait. Plenty of time for something to go wrong.”

“That's a terribly pessimistic way of looking at the world,” the woman chided.

“Yes, well, you know me, Rennie. Not happy if I'm not worrying about something.” He lifted his cup and took a long drink.

Marta gave up on drawing the boy, who was now being firmly shepherded away by the woman. She drew a loose spiral down one side of the page. She wanted to get better at this. What was the saying? Everyone has a million bad drawings they have to get through before they can create the good ones? Something like that.

“Really, now.” Rennie—was it a nickname? Renée, or perhaps Lauren?—shook her head. “You worry too much. About everything. This... yes, this could go wrong. But I don't think it will. I think the _Sagan_ is going to make it to Eos safely, and its passengers are going to be all right.”

Gabe shook his head. “And that's you. The optimist. We used to drive Mom crazy, didn't we? Me, worrying about everything, and you, never worried at all.”

“We did.” The woman smiled, but her expression seemed tempered by grief.

The two sat in silence for a few moments. Marta turned to look back at the window. The branches of birch trees outside the cafe were swaying gently in the breeze, their leaves a lovely pale green.

Trees. Too many leaves, at least for her current state of frustration. She settled for just one leaf, with a broad base narrowing to a tip and serrated edges. Carefully, she drew in its delicate veins.

“Remember when we were kids, and the whole world seemed to be falling apart?” Gabe asked.

“Mm. Yes. I do.” Rennie's smile grew wry. “Things have changed so much. I'm glad I got to see it.”

“Same here.” The man leaned back in his chair. “I guess I'm glad that we're sending a ship to Eos. I just hate the thought that it could all turn into a tragedy. Like Challenger. Wasn't alive for that, but still. It's happened. It could happen again. I just... I don't want to get my hopes up if they're just going to come crashing down. It seems so unreal that we've managed this much—that we might really turn science fiction into, well, science reality.”

The woman looked down at her cup for a moment. “All of Earth will grieve, if the _Sagan_ fails. But we'll send another. And another. We've both lived long enough to know that humanity will never stop trying. Never stop looking to the stars.”

A smile spread across the man's face. “God, Rennie, you're such a romantic.”

Rennie gave a quick bark of a laugh. “It's true, though! We're getting up there, just you watch. We've finally started to get our act together as a species—as a world—and now we're looking outward. To boldly go, and all that.”

“I guess you're right.” He took another sip from his drink. “So. Heading back to earth... how are Laina and the kids?”

Marta checked the time on her phone. Later than she'd thought—she'd promised to babysit her younger siblings this afternoon.

She took one last look at the afternoon's work. The boy wasn't as bad as she'd thought, earlier, though she definitely needed more practice doing quick figure sketches.

Well, she was better than she'd been a year ago. That was really all you could hope for.

She was improving, one day at a time. One sketch at a time.

And you never really stopped getting better. It was an encouraging thought.

Marta tucked her sketchbook into her bag, picked up her cup, and headed back home.

▲▲▲

Two girls ran through the park, screaming in gleeful mock-terror.

“Quick, up there! They can't climb!” one of them yelled, pointing towards a piece of playground equipment. Together, the two climbed up the metal ladder. Once they'd both reached the top of the structure, they stared down, gasping for breath, at the imagined creatures snarling at them from the ground.

Lia imagined the alien animals as a combination of some of the biggest, scariest, coolest animals she knew of—a mishmash blend of wolves, crocodiles, and saber-toothed cats (the last of which she'd immediately fallen in love with while reading a book on prehistoric creatures; there was a poster on her wall of a family of saber-toothed cats. She'd gotten the poster from a family museum trip).

Of course, standing safely at the top of the playground equipment/the top of a treacherous crumbling cliff, while good for catching one's breath, didn't make for much excitement. Maybe the creatures could climb?

“Do you think they can get up here?” Lia asked her friend, Anabel.

Anabel shook her head, her short curly hair swinging with the movement. “No. They're, they're... they only hunt on the ground.” She paused to think. “They're hungry.”

Well, yes, of course they were; that was why the alien creatures were chasing the two of them.

“But they shouldn't want to eat us,” Lia said, suddenly remembering a part of one of her favorite books— _Kaylee Liu and the Water World_ , one of the ever-lengthening _Kaylee Liu_ series about a young space explorer. The series was quite popular in the girls' elementary school; Lia had every single book stored on her e-reader. “We're from Earth, and things on other planets probably wouldn't be able to digest us.”

“So they must be _really_ hungry,” said Anabel, her brow wrinkling in thought. “Maybe we scared away all their other prey.”

“Just us?” Lia asked. “Or—maybe our ship. When we landed.”

“Yeah!” Anabel nodded. “Maybe—maybe our instruments give off some sort of high-pitched noise, something humans can't hear, but the big herbivores could, so they went away, and now the carnivores are all hungry.” Lia thought she remembered something like that being a plot point in one of the _Kaylee Liu_ books, though she couldn't remember which one, exactly.

“So we've got to get back to the ship and turn them off!” Lia concluded. Resolute, she stared down at the ground below, imaginary predators pacing back and forth, snarling in hunger and frustration.

“But how do we get back there?” Lia asked. “Do we just wait for them to leave?”

“Yeah. But maybe they'll leave soon, so they can start trying to find something else?” said Anabel.

Lia nodded. She waited a few moments--long enough, she thought, for hungry alien carnivores to get bored. “Okay, I think they're starting to head back towards those trees over there,” she said, pointing to a small cluster of oak trees to one side of the playground.

“All right, on three, get down and run as fast as you can,” said Anabel. “One... two... three!”

The two girls scurried down the ladder and made a break for the slide on the other side of the playground, which they had earlier decided was the ship.

“They heard us!” Lia declared. “They're coming after us!”

The two, spurred to new heights of speed by the hungry carnivores charging after them—Lia could practically hear the thudding of their paws on the playground mulch behind them, sending bits and pieces flying as they ran—finally reached the slide, taking refuge beneath it. Quickly, Lia tapped her fingers on the side of the slide, pushing imaginary buttons. “Okay, I think it's off now. So the herbivores should come back—”

“Hey, girls,” called one of Anabel's dads. “It's getting late. Time to head home, all right?”

Lia was having a sleepover at Anabel's house tonight—they were going to watch the _Kaylee Liu_ movie that had just come out, based on the first book, _Kaylee Liu and the Mystery at Space Station 7_.

Lia wanted to be just like Kaylee Liu when she grew up. She wanted to go up to space, and see new worlds, and learn about all the plants and animals on them—because people knew, now, that there were definitely other worlds with life on them. Scientists had discovered a world called Eos, that had plants and small animals and breathable air. There was going to be an expedition—a big ship called the _Sagan_ , full of scientists of all kinds, was going to go out there. It was going to be a terribly long trip, and the passengers would be asleep for a lot of it, but once they finally got there... well, they'd have to be very careful at first, to make sure they didn't mess up the ecosystem, so they'd still have to live on the ship for a few years.

But they'd get to explore, and learn about all the creatures on Eos, and eventually live there.

Lia was too young to go there now. But she knew, right now, with all the certainty that a seven-year-old could muster, that she was going to be a scientist—a biologist. Once Lia grew up, when the next life-bearing planet was discovered, she was going to be ready.

She was going to go up there. And maybe Anabel would come with her, and they'd travel through space together, best friends journeying through the stars to see all the wonderful things the universe had to offer.

▲▲▲

Petra Sykora, a geologist (and yes, she'd heard plenty of cracks about her name, really, no need to make another, she already knew what “Petra” meant) paused for a moment to admire the rosebushes in front of her mother's house.

Her mother had always loved roses, and the flowers in front of Carmen Sykora's house bloomed in a variety of shades of white, off-white, and pink.

Petra remembered, as a child, watching her mother tend to them, on her knees beside the bushes, wearing thick gardening gloves and wielding a trowel or a pair of pruning shears.

Petra took a deep breath, and walked up to the door, rung the bell, and waited.

A few minutes later, her mother opened the door.

“Petra,” she said, quietly. The older woman closed her eyes briefly, and dipped her chin, before opening her eyes and meeting her daughter's gaze. “Come in.”

Petra followed her mother indoors, glancing over at the old photographs in the entryway. One was a family photo, taken before Petra's father had died in a car accident—the car's autonavigational system had malfunctioned.

The three of them were smiling, standing in front of the house—they'd just moved. The corners of Petra's mouth perked up, looking at her younger self, remembering.

“I've just put some water on to boil,” said Petra's mother. “I've got black tea and green. Both normal green, and pomegranate-flavor.”

Petra had always liked pomegranate, though her mother had never been quite as fond of it; the fact that she'd bought it was probably a good sign. She sat herself down at the table, and tried to find the right words.

“Mom,” she said. “I... I know we didn't part on the best of terms last time.”

“No. We didn't.” Her mother's back was turned, opening the cabinet that held the mugs. She pulled out two, and set them on the counter. She paused a moment, not turning around.

“I didn't... I didn't want to leave it like that,” said Petra. “Not when..."

Petra sighed, then continued. "You know I'm leaving in two weeks. You haven't answered my calls, texts, emails for the last week. Mom, talk to me. Please.”

Her mother placed her hands on the counter in front of her. After a few heartbeats, she turned around. Her expression was that of attempted stoicism, but her mouth was trembling.

“I'm sorry,” said her mother, her voice cracking. “I was grieving. Grieving you. Grieving my only _child._ Who's going to leave—” Her voice broke. She turned away. With a deep breath, she opened a drawer with enough force that the utensils within clattered, and pulled out two spoons.

“Mom,” said Petra, a lump growing in her throat. “I'm...”

Her first impulse was to say “I'm sorry,” but she wasn't. Not at all. She was about to be a part of history—the first manned trip to another life-bearing world, the first attempt to find humankind a second home among the stars.

But to do so, she would have to leave everything she knew—everyone she loved—behind.

“Mom, you know I don't want to hurt you. And I'm... I'm sad too, okay? I know I'm about to leave—everything.” She rose from her chair, and walked over to her mother. “But I have to do this. Being a part of this—going with the _Sagan_ is everything I've worked for. Everything I've dreamed of. I'm going to do something no one's ever done before—there's so much to see, so much to learn. It's another planet, Mom, another world, just as full of life as this one, and...” She swallowed. “Please, Mom. I don't want to leave like this. I don't want you to be angry with me when I leave.”

Her mother turned away, covering her eyes with a hand.

“Mom?” said Petra.

“Oh God, Petra. I'm so—” She turned back to look at her daughter, tears streaming from her eyes. “I'm so _proud_ of you. But God, this hurts.”

Petra reached out and pulled her mother into a hug. The two women clung to each other, and Petra felt her own eyes stinging with tears.

“Hey, Mom, it's gonna be all right,” she said, though she wasn't feeling entirely all right herself.

“My baby, my little girl,” her mother said, sobbing. “Oh, God. Don't leave me. Don't go.”

Petra said nothing, but held her mother tighter, letting her own tears fall.

The two women stood there together, for a while, crying together. The kettle whistled; they ignored it.

After a while, once they'd both spent their tears, they broke apart, wiping their eyes.

“Oh, Petra,” said Carmen, quietly. “I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of what you've done, what you're going to do. But I'm going to spend every day missing you.”

“I'll miss you too, Mom,” said Petra. “But—I'll see your face again. They'll put us in and out of stasis in shifts—with the new quant-comms, there's almost no delay, we'll be able to talk in real time. Around seven years after we leave... we'll talk again.” That was in outside time; inside the ship, time would be moving a bit more slowly. Calculating how that worked, thankfully, was not her department.

“You know it's not the same,” said her mother. “And I don't want to spend years between seeing your face, hearing you speak. But...” She took a deep breath. “I don't want to waste this time, now. I know I'm not going to change your mind. And... maybe, deep down, I don't really want to. I always had such dreams for you—you were always such a brilliant child. I can't keep you grounded forever, not when you want to soar.”

“I wish I could take you with me, Mom,” said Petra. Her mother merely shook her head.

“Me, an old lady of seventy-three? I'm too old for that,” she said. “No. You'll go off, into the stars, and I'll stay here and miss you. But... I'll know that you're okay. I'll know you're off doing wonderful things, and that the whole world is watching you—all of you, on that ship, they'll see you as heroes, and we're all... oh, I'm going to start crying again.” She gave a little half-laugh, half-sob. “Petra. Please, sit down. I'll put the tea in to steep.”

“Okay, Mom,” said Petra, giving her a last, comforting pat on the shoulder.

“How long were you planning on staying?” said her mother.

“As long as we need to,” said Petra. “I don't want to leave anything unsaid, before I go.”

Petra's mother nodded. “All right, love. Then we won't.”

They sat over tea for hours, well into the evening, talking about anything and everything, and when Petra left at last, after a last, long embrace, she knew that she and her mother would be parting on good terms when the time came to leave Earth at last.

She looked up at the sky as she left the house. It was dark—the stars were out.

Somewhere, out there, was her new home.

As she reached her car, Petra turned back to look at her old one—trying to memorize every last detail, from the way the lights shone in the front window, to the sound of the rosebushes rustling in the night breeze, to the look on her mother's face as she stood in the doorway, watching her daughter leave.

Petra waved, and her mother waved back.

Then Petra stepped into her car, hit a few buttons to tell it to head home, and let her vehicle carry her away into the night.


End file.
